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Karabakh, which belonged to the Persians, was the only one among the ruins of the once great Armenian Kingdom to retain the Armenian meliks’ patrimonial appanages as monuments of the past greatness across the whole territory lying between the rivers Araks and Kurak (meliks were princes, rulers of principalities (melikdoms) – ed.), writes General of the Russian army Vasily Aleksandrovich Potto, a military historian referred to as the ‘Nestor’ of the history of the Caucasus, in his fundamental research ‘The First Volunteers of Karabakh,’ 

“In Artsakh, or in the Lower Karabakh, those patrimonial appanages were Dizak, Varanda, Khachen, Charopert (Jraberd, – ed.) and Gulistan, constituting the Karabakh possessions, as mentioned in ancient Russian documents,” Potto writes. According to his research, Karabakh highlands, Syunik or Zangezur, had only one significant melikdom, Kashatagh, surrounded with lands of other smaller Armenian possessions. The other part, reaching Araks, was predominantly populated by Tatar nomads.

The Armenian meliks, Potto writes, were able to retain their ancient hereditary rights and even to maintain their political position in the country until almost the early 19th century. As vassals of Persia, they established their hereditary rights by the Persian shahs, whom they paid contribution. However, they retained their political independence in the domestic governing of their lands, had ‘their court and reprisals,’ fortified castles and even their own retinues to protect the lands from Lezgians and Turks.

As a result of Turks and Persians’ claims of ‘dominion over the Transcaucasia,’ the melikdoms started to ‘near their fall’ with time, given that ‘all those people’ – Turks and Persians – left devastated fields and burnt up villages behind them.

“That unceasing and excruciating struggle went on year after year for entire centuries, and the small Christian nation heroically endured amid the Muslim world surrounding it,” Potto writes.

After Nader Shah’s death, who ‘appreciated the Karabakh meliks’ courage’ and tried to support them with all of his mighty authority, a number of internecine wars over the throne burst out in Artsakh. As a result, the chieftain of Javanshir tribe, ‘some Panah,’ raised his nomadic Tatars in 1748 and declared himself Khan of Karabakh.

“In the beginning, the meliks retained their domestic governance, yet it was obvious that this independence was to collapse under his successor Ibrahim Khan, for Ibrahim was one of those Asian despots who tolerate no independence around them, especially when it comes to Christian meliks,” Potto notes.

Vasily Potto’s research ‘The First Volunteers of Karabakh in the Period of Establishment of the Russian Dominion (Melik-Vani and Hakop-Yuzbashi Atabekovs),’ dedicated to the history of the Atabekovs’ family, is based on various sources. This enabled the author to describe more precisely the history and images of the brave Armenian volunteers from the ancient Armenian dynasty of Atabekyans, as well as to cover the period of the annexation of Eastern Armenia into the Russian Empire and the historical events of the first quarter of the 19th century.

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